QuickStart

Welcome to CubicNavigator, a browser for QuickTime VR and other forms of panoramic images. This QuickStart page is for people who don't like reading manuals before jumping into a new program.

The main concepts of this guide are also presented visually in the following screen recording video, and in 4 minutes 30 seconds you can learn almost everything you need to know to run CubicNavigator.

      Watch QuickStart Video  [4:30]

QuickStart Steps

1. To load a sample VR tour, click the "Sample Tour" bookmark in the drawer at the right of the window. This bookmark points to a QuickTime VR movie contained within the program. The location will load and then the panorama will appear in the main viewer area.

2. Move the view by clicking the mouse near the center of the image and drag. You can drag left, right, up or down and the panorama will track your movements. The more you move the mouse from where you first clicked, the faster the panorama will move.

3. The sample tour is a multinode movie, which means more than one location was photographed when it was originally created. You can change nodes by clicking on a hotspot, a region where the mouse cursor will change to the hand pointer. There is a hotspot over the pavillion. When this hotspot is clicked, the second node will be loaded.

4. You can see other available hotspots by clicking the [H] button at the bottom right of the viewer window. Hotspot areas will show as transparent green overlays. Click the [H] button again to see a pristine panorama.

In some multinode tours, labels are also available indicating where the hotspot goes to. To show these, click the [L] button.

5. You can jump from node to node using the quick access buttons below the URL location field at the top of the screen. Clicking one of these buttons will jump straight to that node.

6. Another way of moving from node to node is to use a map. When the author of a VR tour has made one available and it is in a format CubicNavigator can understand, a map can be displayed by clicking the [M] button at the bottom of the viewer window. The map will be overlayed above the panorama.

The map is a full 3D object and can be moved around by dragging it with the mouse. A red ball indicates where you currently are, green balls indicate other nodes that you can go to by clicking on them. Click [M] again to remove the map (or press 'Esc' on the keyboard).

7. To show the panorama fullscreen, click the "Fullscreen" button on the toolbar at the top of the window, or use the menu shortcut command-F.

While in fullscreen, the same mouse behavior applies - drag from the center of the screen to move the panorama left/right/up/down. Press the 'Esc' key to exit fullscreen mode, or again use command-F.

8. To toggle between the original web page in which the QuickTime VR movie is embedded and the OpenGL-accelerated VR view, click the "View As VR" / "View As Page" button on the toolbar.

When the original page is shown, you'll see the VR content (if any) surrounded by white, indicating it is being displayed by the QuickTime plugin or a Java applet. You can also scroll the page up and down to read the text.

Whether the Web Page view is shown first when you go to a new location, or the VR view instead, is set in the Window tab of the Preferences.

(Often it is convenient to load a new location first in the Web Page view, read any information about it, then by this time the QuickTime VR movie should have finished loading and you can click the View As VR button to toggle into the VR view. The window preference "Always Open Un-Cached Bookmarks In Web Page View" allows this.)

9. To show a slideshow of the current panorama, click the "Slideshow" button on the toolbar to show the slideshow setup dialog. Leave the default options as they are and click the "Play" button. Press "Esc" to exit a slideshow.

10. To explore links to other panoramas, browse through the bookmarks list in the drawer on the right of the window. (Bookmarks with a blue symbol are bookmarks you haven't viewed before in the OpenGL-based VR view, bookmarks with a green symbol are ones you have viewed and are therefore cached for faster access next time.)

The bookmarks drawer also has a search field at the top, which you can use to quickly locate a given subject based on keywords you can enter when adding a bookmark. Most of the default bookmarks have been tagged with their locations and the photographer's name, so try entering a country or city or surname of a VR photographer.

11. To change how the program looks and works, choose CubicNavigator > Preferences... (or press command-comma). An interesting preference option is the following: click the "Mouse" tab at the top of the Preferences window, then enable the Use "First Person Shooter" Mode In Fullscreen checkbox.

Then, back in the viewer window, click the Fullscreen toolbar button (or just press command-F). With this preference enabled, moving the mouse will move the panorama, without having to click the button. This is similar to the behavior in an action game, hence its name.

The preferences can also be used to change the colors of the VR wireframe, hotspots, or labels, to control whether the bookmarks drawer is on the right or left, alter the size of the cursor, etc. To customize the toolbar, choose the View > Edit Toolbar... menu command.

This completes the QuickStart guide. To learn more about a specific area of CubicNavigator, click a chapter heading on the left or proceed to chapter 1 of the manual, Opening Locations.

Watch Movie of Tutorial Being Performed  [4:30]

(Return to List of Tutorials)